Scientists
have found no measurable limit to the amount of information our brains can
store. If you had the time, you could
sit down and memorize every event in human history that was ever recorded. In fact, you've probably memorized millions
upon millions of bits of information over your lifetime already. "Yes, but I've forgotten most of
them," you might be saying, but that isn't really true. When it comes to our long-term memory, the
issue is not storage-- that is to say, your brain doesn't replace old
information with new; rather, it files it all away. "Forgetting" happens when you have
trouble finding the right filing cabinet.
If you want to be a good rememberer, learn to organize your memories, so
you won't have trouble pulling the files you need when you need them. One way that people do this is by associating
information they don't want to forget with an extremely familiar environment--
one's house, for example. That's where
the idea of a "mind palace" comes from (for all of you Sherlock
fans); Holmes is able to recall anything and everything at the snap of a finger
because he's organized all of the information that he thinks he will need in a
palace within his mind, rather than shoving it all into random filing cabinets
as many of us tend to. Now, imagine that
you had a mind palace of your very own and that, in a moment's time, you could
call to mind anything that you wanted to know in any given instance. It's a truly awesome idea, isn't it? Luckily for you, you do have such a palace,
yet you often refuse to open its doors.
Your
elementary school teachers often told you to "memorize your times
tables." I don't regret ignoring
them. Why would you waste your time
doing that when the only time you don't have a calculator within arm's reach is
when you're in the shower? They also
probably made you memorize the fifty states and where they were located on a
U.S. map. I could label Virginia,
Florida, California, and Texas, but beyond that is beyond me, and that has
never been an issue. Why not? Because I carry a map of the entire world in
my pocket. I know that George Washington
was our first president, but I couldn't say with conviction who came right
after him. Don't worry, though; if I
ever need to know, I'll just check the history book that sits on my bedside
table every night while I sleep. I find
the memorization of factual information that's easily and always accessible to
be a pointless exercise and a waste of time, especially when most of what we
memorize just gets lost in our records.
The
internet has done us the favor of taking more information than any individual
could ever have the motivation or time to collect and organizing it into a
gigantic, practically infinite library.
This library is so enormous that no one person could possibly crack
every cover it holds, yet so small that it fits in your hand. The power that the internet gives anyone with
access to it is immeasurable in this "information age." With the help of a computer, phone, or
tablet, you have the ability to learn whatever you want to, see anything that
words can describe, and share any information you think the world should know--
what a profound idea. Why debate whether
the winter solstice is on the 20th or the 21st of December when you can just
look on Wikipedia? Why bother your
professor after the lecture for clarification on how to solve trigonometric
integrals when you can just watch a tutorial on Youtube? Why ask someone how to use an app or change
your settings when you could find a more clear and concise answer in just a few
seconds via a Google search? Along the
same vein, why memorize your times tables, states, or presidents when you could
just look it up whenever you need to know?
Yes,
I'm aware that if everyone was as ignorant as I am, we would not have the stores
of information that we do, and I'm aware that a foundation is necessary in
order to build an informational structure.
I'm not saying that schools should do away with facts and focus solely
on problem-solving, but when you're honed in on the "what" rather
than the "why" and the "how," it should come as no surprise
when college and even high school seem extremely challenging to the average
student. Memorizing one's times tables
does not contribute to an understanding of mathematics, just like the ability
to label fifty states on a map won't help you comprehend the intricacies of
social interaction. We would all be
better off if we stopped worrying about the right answer and concentrated
instead on how to get to it. This
contrast was illustrated to me during my freshman year at William and Mary by
my Physics and Calculus classes. In
Calculus, everyone, including the professor, seemed to put more stock in answer
than the process that got you there; one arithmetic error along the way would
lead to a seven-point deduction on a ten-point problem. In Physics, your answer could be off by a
factor of a hundred, and the professor would deduct two or three points on a
question worth twenty-five. Why? Because the Griff (Professor Griffioen)
didn't particularly care if you put all of the numbers into your calculator
just so; he was more concerned about whether you knew what you were doing with
the variables. Furthermore, formula
sheets were found only in my Physics classes; while this is likely due to the
sheer number of equations that we would have had to memorize for each test, I
believe that it speaks to a bigger idea: memorization is pointless. Like I said before, there will never be a
time in the workplace when I will need and won't have access to Maxwell's
Equations. I wasted hours memorizing the
derivatives and integrals of "common" functions for my Calculus
class, hours that I could have spent mastering the actual mathematics that I
was supposed to be learning. The
overemphasis of mindless details is destructive in a world in which a computer
program will, every time, crank out the correct numbers if given the correct
instructions.
In an
age in which a new, bleeding-edge smart phone is released every six months,
time is our most valuable resource.
Technologically, we're advancing at a breakneck pace, and we don't have
time to sit down and memorize a bunch of facts that someone else has already
made easily accessible to us. There may
be no limit to the amount of information our brains can hold, but there is a
limit to the amount of time we have to use that information, so why not utilize
the tools at our disposal to save ourselves the trouble of committing to memory
countless things that we already have the ability to pull from storage at any
given moment. Let "the cloud"
be your memory and the internet be your mind palace, and don't memorize
anything ever again; you'll just be wasting your time.
